


Ghosts in the Garden

by death_by_shovel



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Bokuroteru to the Rescue, Hinata just wants to know what that light box is, M/M, Nymphs & Dryads, and he is scared, basically there's something in Aone's garden, very very scared
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-09-01 09:03:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8618113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/death_by_shovel/pseuds/death_by_shovel
Summary: Aone loves the garden in his new house. But, when his things start to end up missing or broken, he realizes that the garden may not like him as much as he likes it.





	1. Prologue

When Aone Takanobu bought a little farmhouse in northern Japan, he had expected a few problems. After all, despite being a charming, two bedroom traditional house (with a tiled roof!), it was still hundreds of thousands of yen cheaper than the other similar houses he had looked at. 

Even when he toured the house, there were many little things that should have been fixed before the house even went on the market. The windows were drafty (even in early September), the huge garden in the backyard was massively overgrown, and the front door needed to be lifted a little bit and shoved in order for it to close correctly. This stood out to Aone, because the smiling, well-polished realtor in a power suit definitely should have had these minor problems fixed before showing the house. 

The house probably had much bigger problems to hide than just drafty windows. Problems that the realtor decided to focus on hiding instead of the little things. 

Aone knew this, but, at that price, combined with the beautiful but overgrown garden and the great location near a cozy little village (and the tile roof!), he couldn’t refuse. Besides, he was the son of an electrician and he could say proudly that he was much handier than most people his age. He was confident that he could repair the small things and hire a professional with the extra money he saved from buying the place so cheap to fix any problems that were over his head. 

He was expecting faulty plumbing and questionable wiring. What he got was something else entirely.


	2. Chapter 1: The Adventure Begins

It started with a set of pots. 

Not just any pots, but a very nice set of tiffany blue, polka-dotted terracotta pots he’d gotten on sale at the local hardware store. 

He found all three of them smashed into pieces across the cobbled pathway in his garden not even two days after he bought them. 

This was the least unusual of the incidents. He could blame the wind or even a bout of clumsiness on his part. As admittedly-uncharacteristic as it may be, 

Then, only a few days later, he found his favorite spade at the bottom of the koi pond. He’d searched for hours and probably never would have found the shovel had he not noticed all of his koi crowded in one corner of their pond. As he got closer, he spotted flashes of the spade's red handle being nudged around by curious fish noses. It was there, knee-deep in pond water with his sleeves rolled up and koi nibbling gently at his toes, that he realized that there was probably something else in the garden beside him and the fish.

Maybe if he were someone else, he could blame this on simple uncoordination, but he was very particular about where he kept his tools. He definitely remembered putting the spade back onto it’s designated shelf the night before, the same shelf he'd been usingsince he moved to this house two months prior. 

His first guess was that the garden had an animal problem. 

Maybe there were tanuki in this area of the country. Cats and crows sometimes stole things too, right? The spade was definitely shiny enough to catch the eye of a greedy crow. And any of those animals could have accidentally bumped into the pot set and broken them.

He spent the rest of that day moving his tools into a cupboard that he could lock shut and wrapping chicken wire around his precious rose bushes and tomato plants, hoping to deter any pests from damaging his plants.

The next morning, he woke up to find both of his gardening gloves sticking off separate branches of the only tree in his garden. The gloves had branches stuck inside their openings, making the tree look like it had sprouted creepy hands. 

This time, he knew it had to be something a little smarter (and a lot more human) than a tanuki. 

So, after spending a quick fifteen minutes reporting this to an uninterested non-emergency police line operator and then just generally worrying that he was over-reacting for the rest of the day, he decided that a call to his best friend in Tokyo for his input was exactly what he needed.  
“I’m telling you, it’s probably just some dumb kids trying to prank the new guy in the neighborhood. Nothing to worry about.” Futakuchi Kenji’s light tenor reassured after Aone’s explanation. 

Aone frowned into the phone, precariously held up to his ear by his shoulder so his hands were free to chop up the onions going into his dinner. Futakuchi’s tone was entirely too casual about this whole thing. Although, after three years of watching his high school friend and teammate goad nearly everyone around him into arguments, he hadn’t really expected anything else. 

“Look, you’ve already gone to the police about this, right?” Futakuchi continued. “Just let them handle it. There’s nothing you can really do.” 

The sharp clack-clacks of his knife hitting the board picked up in pace as Aone nodded in resigned agreement. He knew that letting the police do their job was the best move, but he couldn't help being scared in the mean time.

“Dude, did you just nod into the phone?”

“... Yes.”

“You’re so lucky that I’m basically a mind reader or this conversation would be so hard.”

“... Sorry.” 

“Haha, I'm just joking with you! It’s not like I’m used to this after three years of playing volleyball with you. The first years were always so shocked the first time they heard you speak.”

He made a vaguely affirmative-sounding grunt, pushing the finished chopped onion into his largest pot with the flat of his knife and moving onto slicing up some carrots. 

“Seriously Aone, don’t worry about it! Besides, they’ll probably see your face in town one day and shit themselves since you’re so huge and menacing.” He said with a laugh, as if he wasn’t perfectly aware that Aone was actually a frightened puppy stuck in a giant's body.

“Hmm…”

“You are! Like everyone who’s met you knows that you’re harmless after about the first five minutes of knowing you, but, to everyone else, you’re a nearly two meter human personification of a polar bear. They’ll stop messing with you.” Futakuchi’s laughing voice was cut off by faint shouting and laughing in the background. 

“Sorry Aone, but I gotta go. Just make sure you lock your doors and windows at night and you’ll be fine!” He reassured, voice raising as the background noise got closer and louder. 

Then, after a pause, he added, “And maybe invest in a camera system or something.” 

\-------  
After his talk with Futakuchi, he mulled over his words between bites of hotpot. Although he was definitely afraid of putting himself in danger, maybe spending more time in the garden would discourage the vandal, just like Futakuchi said. 

So, he spend the rest of his week weeding out and trimming back the overgrown corners of the garden, thick with brambles and weeds that had made their home in the garden for at least a decade of neglect by the previous owner. 

There, he uncovered a huge grove of strawberry plants, a discovery that took him two days to clear into a semi-orderly group. It would have probably taken anyone else weeks to clear, but, in his giddiness about huge spring strawberry harvest he’d get, it was done in record time. 

The strawberry excavation combined with his normal garden maintenance (including admiring his very large and nearly ready-to-pick daikon radish, the pride and joy of his garden) kept him all week. Surprisingly enough, there were no more incidents in the garden that entire week. 

(During their next phone call, Futakuchi’s response was to this was: “See? I told you so. One of them probably saw you and ran for the fucking hills.”)

His next project: repotting the immortal, decades-old pothos vine that he inherited from his mother. Technically, it was a housewarming gift, designed to make him feel at home by being a piece of home, but he knew his mother just wanted to get rid of the thing so she didn’t have to water it anymore. Despite the ill-treatment from his mother, the plant was practically overflowing from its pot. It grew at a much faster rate than expected from a vine. Aone privately thought that the unexpected growth rate was just the plant trying to take over his living room in retaliation for the poor care it was given by his mother for all those years. 

The pot it was planted in was probably older than the pothos plant itself and made from thick, heavy ceramic. It may have been a pickling jar at some point, one of the old kinds that were buried deep in the cool earth as the contents fermented to keep it from spoiling. 

It was heavy enough that Aone had to brace the pot on his thigh as he lifted it before hoisting it into his arms, despite him being a very strong guy to start with. He wondered how his mother had gotten the plant into her car all by herself. 

As he padded his way slowly and carefully across the living room, through the patio door and into his garden where the pothos’ new pot sat, his concentration was solely on the plant in his arms. He was so focused on not dropping the plant that he didn’t notice something amiss until that certain something noticed him first. 

Aone’s head snapped up as he heard a soft noise. 

There, in the middle of his ripped up vegetable patch, sat a small red-headed teenager, gaping at him like he was some sort of monster from the deep.

Completely naked, with his dirt caked all the way up to his elbows and his ankles deep in the soil.

Clutched in his small, dirty hands was his prized daikon radish, complete with a small, bite-sized chunk taken straight out of the middle of the tuber. 

The two stared at each other in nearly identical surprise for a few seconds that felt like hours. 

Aone jabbed a hand out, pointing in surprise at the intruder just like he used to lock onto the other team’s aces during volleyball games in high school. The pot in his hands tumbled to the side, landing on the stone pathway and shattering into pieces. The sudden movement made the boy yelp, a piece of daikon tumbling out of his mouth as he scrambled to his feet. Before Aone could get his wits together, he was sprinting across the garden, kicking up dirt with each step. He headed straight towards the peach tree, and at first Aone thought the boy would climb it to escape, but he kept up the speed even as the tree got close. 

Right when it looked like he was going to crash into the tree and as Aone wordlessly stared on in disbelief, he reached out and vanished into thin air as soon as his palm hit the tree trunk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who is this strange boy? Why is he destroying Aone's garden? How did he disappear into a tree? And, for God's sake, why is he naked? Tune in next week for some answers but mostly just Aone hiding in terror from a little boy who doesn't even come up to his sternum!


	3. Chapter 2: Bros Helping Bros

In hindsight, maybe running and locking himself in the nearest room (his broom closet) was not the best decision Aone had ever made. 

Especially not this particular closet, where, by some foul mechanism, the only light (a single, bare light bulb turned on by a string) flickered randomly like some cheesy horror movie effect. To anyone else but him, this would have just been inconvenient. Instead, Aone was terrified. 

Each time the light flickered off, there was a chance that it would turn back on just in time for Aone’s eyes to be treated to the one sight he absolutely did not want to see: A redheaded nudist vandal/angry ghost that could turn invisible. Right in front of him. Ready to kill him. 

Aone had no idea what to do, so, naturally, his first thought was to go running to Futakuchi for help. Thankfully, his phone was in his pocket the whole time while he was making his mad dash into the closet, so Futakuchi was only a few clicks away. 

He rumbled into his phone in displeasure as the dial tone beeped into Futakuchi’s voicemail message for the third time in a row. After pressing the end call button firmly, he started redialling the number with large fingers that shook with each press. Who knew that the one time that Aone needed Futakuchi most would be the time he was too busy to answer his phone? The guy was practically glued to it. 

Aone jerked as the light flickered again, bumping his elbow against the cleaning supplies leaning on the wall. He nearly had a heart attack when something above him dropped and thumped him in the head. 

It was only a broom. Not a ghost. Not an angry teenaged vagabond. Not anything even remotely dangerous. 

He clutched at the front of his sweater with hands that trembled. Aone was way too young to be having these kinds of heart palpitations. It took a few moments for his vision to clear and for the thumping in his ears to fade.

The dial tone still rang in his ear. 

_Please, please pick up the phone._ If anyone knew what to do, it would be Futakuchi. Without encouragement, he would be stuck in here forever. Honestly, he was too afraid to leave the room, knowing that there was some kind of teleporting _supernatural something_ outside.

What kinds of things could even teleport? Was it an alien? A time traveller? Why would a time-travelling alien even be in his garden in the first place?

And who knew if the boy even teleported? Maybe he turned invisible. Maybe the house was so cheap not because it was a fixer-upper but because it was haunted and it drove the previous owner out? 

What if the ghost was the previous owner, looking for vengeance against the person who dared to trespass on his precious home? 

What if-

The dial tone stopped abruptly with a click as Futakuchi finally answered his phone. 

“The garden. It’s a ghost. Stuck in a closet. Please help.” Aone was talking as soon as Futakuchi picked up the phone, blurting out the whole situation in stunted sentences that sounded less like he was cowering in terror in a closet and more like he was about to run after the intruder with an axe. 

“Dude what?” 

The responding voice was decidedly _not Futakuchi’s_. 

“Look, I don’t know who this phone belongs to and I basically answered just to make you stop calling, but _bro_.” The last syllable was drawn out and breathy, like it’s owner could barely believe what he was hearing. Whoever it was had a lighter, more high-pitched voice that conveyed his emotions much more clearly than Futakuchi’s ever did. (His former captain only had two tones of voice: normal and sarcastic.)

“You have a ghost in your house? Fuck, dude, I think you have to call an exorcist or something. Did it like throw anything at you or grab you?” There was a rustling noise before he heard a muffled, “Bro, get over here!” 

Aone found himself shaking his head into the phone without realizing it. 

“Are you still there? It didn’t get you, did it?” The panicked tone snapped Aone back into focus, realizing that he never responded to the first question. 

“Still here. Where is Futakuchi?” He whispered into the phone, trying to keep his voice down and hiding place hidden in case the _thing_ was listening. 

“Futakuchi Kenji? This is his phone? I know that dude. Nah, he’s probably in class or something. He was at our party last night though and probably left his phone here.” 

The broom fell again, this time landing on his arm and pulling a panicked grunt from his throat as he frantically scooted to the other edge of the closet. 

“Whoa dude, what was that? Did you see the ghost again? You gotta tell me more!” 

Aone paused. Well, if Futakuchi wasn’t there to help him through this, whoever was on the phone was much, much better than dealing with this alone. 

“I went into the garden to repot a plant.” He paused for a moment as the light flickered again, squeezing his eyes shut in case it was something bad. When the light returned, there was no change, so he continued, “There, eating my radish, was a boy. He ran when he saw me and disappeared into a tree.” 

“Whoa, seriously? You sure you didn’t blink and miss him climbing into it or something?” 

“Yes. He touched the tree and vanished.” 

“What did he look like?”

“Small. Red hair. Naked and covered in dirt.” 

“No blood or guts spilling out of him? He wasn’t green or weird-colored or anything, right? Was he see-through?” 

Aone shook his head again. “No. Just normal looking person. Maybe middle school-aged.” 

“That might not even be a ghost, bro.” This voice was different: deeper with a smug undertone to it, much more like Futakuchi. It was also strangely muffled and quiet, like it was further away than the first one. 

Aone made a questioning noise at the unexpected new voice. 

“Sorry, I put you on speaker so my roommate could hear too. He’s smarter and better at advice with these kinds of things anyway.” 

He wondered privately what “these kinds of things” meant and how the new roommate’s voice could be better at it than other people. 

The first voice continued his questioning, sounding way too eager for Aone’s taste, considering that he was hiding in terror in a closet. “Is this the first time you’ve seen him?” 

“Yes.”

“How long have you lived there?” 

“Two months.” 

“So not very long then. Has anything weird like this happened since you’ve been living there?” 

“Yeah, something broke a few pots, threw my tools in the pond, and put my gloves in a tree.”

“That could be an animal or kid pulling some pranks, though. Probably a coincidence.” The roommate’s tenor voice explained lazily. 

“Yeah, but it could also be because of the teenaged kid in his yard that disappeared into thin air! Dude, you’ve got a poltergeist in your house and you should run and find a priest to like bless that place.”

“Don’t scare him like that. Even if it is a ghost, it’s not like it launched a vase at his head or pushed him down the stairs. He’s probably friendly.”

“You don’t know that! It always escalates from little things like this to someone getting possessed and murderous! Look at _Poltergeist_!” 

“ _Poltergeist_ is a movie, bro. Not real life.”

The brewing argument was interrupted by a door slamming shut in the background. At first, Aone’s heart skipped a beat, thinking that it was a door slamming shut in his house. Then, he heard a very faint, “Ugh! Chemistry is going to kill me!” from the other line, followed by a bunch of strange, loud noises. (Was that hooting?)

Both of his listeners shushed the newcomer. Naturally, that only seemed to pique his interest. “Who are you both talking to over there?” 

“Nothing important, Bo.” The deeper voice replied. “Go watch some TV in my room. This is too scary for you.” 

“Aw come on, Kuroo! I’m a man! I can handle a scary story or two without acting like a scared little kid, right Teru?”

The original person who answered the phone (Teru?) snorted. “Koutarou, you were so terrified of Gollum from _the Lord of the Rings_ that you hid behind a pillow whenever he was on screen, and that’s not even a horror movie.” 

“See, Bo? If you listen, you’ll end up having to stay in my room all night with the lights on because you’re too scared to sleep. We’ll let you know what’s up in a little bit.” ‘Bo’ let out a whiny groan in response. “Besides, I’m pretty sure that Judge Judy is on and I know how much you like that trashy show.” 

“Judge Judy is not trashy! She is an upstanding lady and how dare you call her bad names!” Bo yelled in outrage, but his voice got fainter and fainter until he heard another door click shut. Aone assumed that, despite his protests, this Bo person was definitely more interested in daytime courtroom television than in scary stories. Or maybe he just recognized the logic in their statements? 

“Sorry dude, are you still there?” Teru apologized, turning his attention back to the person on the other end of the phone. 

Aone grunted an affirmative. 

“Are you still hiding in the closet?” 

Another affirmative. 

“Look. I don’t know if it’s a ghost doing all those things in your house or if this is just a coincidence and your eyes tricked you with the disappearing boy thing. Could be either one.” Kuroo, the deeper-voiced one, advised. “However, I think you should get out of that closet now and take a look around your house. If you see anything weird, call the police and leave, but if everything’s normal, just keep an eye on things and try not to worry too much.” 

“Still follow up with a police report after that, though, in case it was just a regular trespassing thing.” Teru added. 

“If you want, we can stay on the phone with you while you take a look around. Me and Teru have nothing to do right now anyway.” 

“Yeah, and, if you do get murdered by the ghost, at least someone will have a slight idea what happened!” 

“... Real helpful, Teru.” 

“Yup, that’s what I’m-.”

The phone line cut out abruptly with a click. Aone pulled his cell phone away from his ear just fast enough to catch the “low battery” notification before the phone’s screen turned black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait! Here's the second chapter for you guys. Hopefully it's not too hard to follow! 
> 
> Next chapter should be up in about a week. :)


	4. Chapter 3

Aone did not want to leave this closet. 

It was dark, had a faulty light bulb, smelled faintly like bleach, and was so small that he had to keep his legs tucked up against his chest in order to fit completely in it, but it was a million times more preferable than whatever unknown there was waiting outside. 

He was not going to open that door. Who knows, maybe the ghost kid had gotten over his initial surprise and was standing right outside that very door. Just waiting for him to open it up. So he could pounce. 

The thought made him tremble. He was a big, burly guy but what was that against the supernatural? 

He squeezed his eyes shut and grabbed the broom that kept falling on him, putting it in front of him like a makeshift sword and trying his hardest to think happy thoughts. They were his only distraction from his probable death via angry spirit that loomed just outside the door. 

Aone had no idea how much time had passed, but he spent a very long time huddled up in that closet, broom at the ready to be used for defense at any moment. 

However, he did know that his legs were starting to cramp up, uncomfortable from the lack of stretching room. His bladder was starting to press uncomfortably in his pelvis too. 

He began to realize with a sinking pit of dread in his stomach that Kuroo was right: no matter how much he didn’t want to, he would have to leave the closet eventually. 

It was just a matter of mustering up the courage to leave that Aone was struggling with. 

Well, the sooner he left this dusty, old place, the sooner he could get out and run to the nearest neighbor’s house. Besides, it had been long enough that maybe the ghost had lost interest and left? Aone could only hope that this was the case. 

With that thought, Aone grunted to himself in encouragement, clutching the broom handle with white knuckles. 

He gripped the door handle, turning the knob slowly and silently. Finally, with a long breath to settle the growing pit of anxiety bubbling in his stomach, he pushed the door open hard. The door flew on its hinges, slamming against the opposite wall loudly to reveal his kitchen. (There was probably a new hole in that wall for him to fix later, but he was a little too preoccupied with other things to care at that particular moment.)

Aone whipped the broom outside of the room, bristles first, ready to hit anything that jumped out at him. Frantically, he searched around the kitchen for anything out of the blue (like naked teenagers). 

Nothing. 

Tiptoeing forward, he passed the sink that still had the dirty pan he’d used to make breakfast soaking in it, and stopped next to the fridge where his phone charger was plugged into the wall. Quickly, he fished his dead phone out of his pocket. It took a few tries with his trembling hands, but he finally managed to plug the phone in and set it on his countertop. 

As soon as the charging logo popped up on the screen, he turned his attention from the phone to the rest of the kitchen. In the dim light, nothing in his kitchen seemed out of the ordinary. The book he was reading this morning was still open on top of the kotatsu frame he used as his dinner table as well as his mug of coffee, long since cooled. He dipped towards the floor a little bit to check under the low table, but there was nothing. 

From where Aone was standing, he could see into part of the main room through the open screen door connecting the rooms. He couldn’t see completely into the larger room, so he crept forward, treading as lightly as he could across the springy tatami floor of the kitchen as it switched to polished wood in the next room. 

The main room was exactly was he left it, the untouched irori hearth, sunken into the floor and filled with sand and ashes, still surrounded by the same cushions in the same spot as they had always been. The wooden room opened up into the entryway, a few feet lower than the main room so guests could have an area to take off their shoes without getting the floor dirty. Extra pairs of indoor slippers for guests were perched on the edge of the wooden floor, none of which were missing. 

Both bedrooms were bare of anything (or anyone) else than the folded up futons. The small bathing room to the left of his bedroom was devoid of anything unusual as well. 

He even stopped for a bathroom break in the separate toilet room after he’d finished sweeping through most of the house. 

The last room was the room he was most nervous about: the living room. It was the only other room in the house other than the kitchen that had a direct opening into the garden, but even that room was empty. Aone even switched the TV on for a moment. It was still on the same channel he’d been watching last night before he went to bed. 

As soon as he was done with checking the whole house, and with his trusty broom still held out in front of him as if it would ward off any scary ghosties, he slowly made his way back to the kitchen. While he was in his bedroom, he had heard his ringtone go off many times in succession, meaning that his phone had turned back on and someone had tried to call him back multiple times while his phone was off. 

Those Kuroo and Teru guys probably thought he’d been snatched and was currently being murdered right now. 

He made his way back to the kitchen, still cautiously peering at shadows and corners. Still nothing, except his phone buzzing with a new text right as he drew closer. 

The lit screen showed 13 missed calls, 23 unread texts, and four new voicemails.

Aone entered his password (1308, his birthday) and scrolled through the texts with his thumb. They slowly progressed from “dude are you ok? Did you hang up because of bad phone service?” to “OMG DUDE JUST HANG ON DON’T LET HIM GET YOU!” After briefly scanning the texts, he tapped at the bottom screen to pull up the keyboard and slowly began typing up his response to let them know that, no, he was not dead. 

Something hit the wall facing his garden with a soft thump right as his thumb hovered over the “send” button. The phone went flying from his fingers as he jumped in surprise, hitting the tatami and sliding under the fridge. Aone practically leaped towards his broom and clutched it against his chest. His kitchen had one of two opening screens facing the garden and, before he knew it, he was wrenching the screen open, rushing onto his wooden porch and stepping down onto the stone tiles of the garden. 

He was running on pure adrenaline at this point. If he’d been thinking clearly, he probably would have ended up back in that closet. His heartbeat thudded loudly in his ears, frantic but still steady, as he scanned the garden in the dim light. 

Still the same orderly rows of flowers and vegetables, surrounded by rose bushes and neat stone paths. The koi pond was undisturbed, tucked away in the corner of the high wooden wall enclosing the garden, and the lone peach tree’s branches waved in the slight breeze. His vegetable patch was still ripped up and, laying in the middle, was the daikon radish, the bite-sized chunk taken out of the side visible even from where he was standing. The immortal pothos vine was laying in the exact spot he’d dropped it, the pot cracked into pieces and spilling dirt all over the stone pathway. 

Nothing out of place whatsoever and no sign of anything new in the garden. 

A small movement to his right caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. He jerked his head towards it, only to find a small sparrow huddled on the floor of the narrow porch that separated the heavier outer screen walls from the more delicate paper shoji walls on the inside. Aone had removed the outer wooden walls for the summer to increase the house’s ventilation and cool it down, and it seemed that the bird had misjudged and flown straight into the wall. When he crouched down to examine it further, the bird did not move or fly away, alive but very dazed from the impact. It panted silently through its open beak. 

Aone let out a huge sigh of relief. The noise wasn’t a ghost, hungry for vengeance and out for his blood, but a tiny little bird who carelessly flew where it shouldn’t have. 

He plopped down carefully on the porch next to the bird, letting his legs dangle off the edge and his feet brush the dusty stone tile underneath. Keeping one eye on the bird in case he had to make an emergency trip to the local vet and another on the garden, where the ghost child could still be lurking for all he knew, he waited for the bird to recover. It took a few minutes, but the sparrow eventually collected himself enough to shake it’s feathers out before flying off, unharmed, away from the scary human. It flew straight to the bird feeder Aone had attached to one of the support beams holding up the roof above them, perching on the side and pecking away at the free food. 

Aone stayed in that same spot until he could feel his heart rate slow back to normal and the heavy stress in his belly unwind. The more that he watched the garden and nothing happened, the more that he started to consider Kuroo’s last bit of advice to him over the phone. 

Although the daikon radish was still there, proof that he had really seen a boy in his garden earlier, there was nothing that completely connected him to the other events in the past couple of weeks. 

Maybe he had blinked without realizing it as the boy went to hide behind the tree and he just missed it. He probably just waited until he saw Aone scamper off before he left himself, long gone by the time Aone finally emerged from his closet. 

It did not explain why he was naked, though. Aone thought that the general clothing rule to breaking into a place was to wear as much clothing as possible to avoid any facial recognition. Or maybe that was his plan? Maybe he expected any potential witnesses to be so shocked by the sudden appearance of genitals that they couldn’t catch a decent glimpse of his face? 

Didn’t work. Aone would remember that orange hair flying in all directions and wide brown eyes set in a round face with baby fat still filling in his cheeks for the rest of his life. The stress of the situation burned that sight into his memory forever. 

Who knows if the boy was even trying to steal from him? Maybe he was some kind of nudist or just a crazy person who hated clothes, escaped from his home and was currently running wild in the wilderness. 

At the same time, he was very sure that the boy simply disappeared as soon as he touched the peach tree. There was still a very real possibility that something supernatural was going on. 

The thought of an actual ghost in his garden that terrorized him not 20 minutes ago suddenly didn’t seem so scary. Kuroo was right in saying that, although the broken pots and missing shovel were annoying, the ghost had never tried to harm him. He had no way of telling whether things would escalated like Teru said, but something about how fast the boy ran away when discovered had Aone thinking that he was probably not harmful. 

And, in the brief moment that he actually saw his face, the boy looked just as scared as Aone felt. 

The thought calmed Aone like nothing else could have. Soon, he lifted himself up from his spot on the porch. The pothos still needed to be repotted. The weather was cool enough this late into September that a little more exposure might actually kill the deathless vine. 

As he fished each shard of broken ceramic from the mess underneath the pothos and tossed them into the trash nearby, he finally focused on something other than the ghost boy for the first time since. 

Soon, he was pouring extra soil, dotted heavily with white bits of fertilizer, from its brightly colored bag into the lavender pot the pothos now called its home. He hoped the extra fertilizer and fresh new soil helped to appease the plant before it grew super powers out of sheer anger at its mistreatment at the hands of his mother, hellbent on eradicating all humans from the planet. The last thing he needed was a supervillain spawning in his backyard along with the random naked people showing up to vandalize his garden. 

The thought had Aone smiling quietly to himself, and soon his mind was clear of most of its worrying. There was still the occasional thought, but he certainly wasn’t dwelling on it as he spent the rest of the evening cleaning up his poor vegetable garden. 

Sure, someone trespassing on his property was scary and a big deal, but there was no sense in dwelling on it. He would call and file a police report about it tomorrow and maybe inquire about a blessing from the local church. 

He was so preoccupied by the cleaning in his garden and by his thoughts that he forgot all about his phone under the fridge, still stuck on the “send message” screen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, no Hinata in this chapter! I promise he'll be in the next one, though! :)


	5. Chapter 5

The extra cleaning kept him busy well after the sun set. By the time he finished and went inside to start making dinner, it was hours past his usual dinner time. He whipped up some omurice, quick, easy, and delicious, and pondered his next move between each bite. 

Was he going to intentionally lure the other person out? Maybe it would be best to not provoke him and just let him come out on his own?  

Aone shook his head at that thought quietly to himself. Although waiting for his resident ghost to make the first move probably kept him safe from supernatural retaliation, there was no way Aone would be able to sleep at night knowing that something could sneak up on him at any time. No, the best way was to lure the boy out and try to figure out what was going on with him. Maybe he could reason with him.  

The omurice was getting cold on his plate, forgotten as Aone deliberated over his choices late into the night, but, no matter how hard he thought, he could think of no safe was to get his skittish unwanted guest to talk to him.  

* * *

The answer came unexpectedly the next morning in the shape of his elderly neighbor, Mrs. Yoshida.

He had just woken up 20 minutes earlier, still in his sweatpants and rubbing sleep from his eyes as he padded around the kitchen waiting for his tea to brew. A quiet knock on the door was his only warning before she slid the front door open a crack and peeked inside without waiting for an answer to her knock. She smiled as soon as she spotted him. 

“Good morning, Takanobu dear.” The wizened old woman greeted cheerfully. “I brought a treat for you today.” She slid the door open further to step in, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she watched him approach. Mrs. Yoshida was a very small old woman, elegant in a simple striped maroon traditional kimono with a shawl draped over her hunched shoulders. She held a small packaged wrapped in a bird-patterned cloth with both of her hands. Aone rushed forward to take the package from her, guiding the old woman through the door and shutting it behind them. 

Even as she tottered over to where his other inside slippers were lined neatly, she spoke to him, voice high and reedy with age. It was so quiet that Aone had to strain to pick up her words. 

“That package is for you, dear. I finally got around to baking for my grandson in the city and thought I would make another for you while I was at it. I do worry about you all the way out here by yourself. You’re not much older than my grandson, and heaven knows he’d burn down the whole place if that boy lived alone and had to cook for himself.” Her tiny shoulders shook with laughter. 

While Mrs. Yoshida slipped out of her wooden sandals and into one of his pairs of slippers, Aone unfolded the cloth covering of the box carefully and popped the lid open. Inside was a medium-sized cake, covered in perfectly white frosting with whole strawberries lined along the edges. The frosting was smoothed so neatly that the cake almost looked like one of the plastic toys that kids played with.

Aone was right in the middle of thanking Mrs. Yoshida for the gift when the idea hit him. What was harder to resist than a perfect strawberry cake? The ghost boy clearly had an appetite for daikon. Maybe he liked cake too? And, if he liked cake, this particular cake would be something that he couldn’t resist. 

But first… He held out his hand for his elderly neighbor, who took it and leaned into him to boost herself up the step. Mrs. Yoshida patted his hand gently as she thanked him for his help and slowly made her way into his kitchen, no doubt intending to chat for the morning. The ghost would have to wait an hour or two, he thought. 

It was a good thing he’d just set some tea out to brew. 

* * *

Aone waved goodbye to Mrs. Yoshida as she slowly climbed up the dirt path and back to her home, leaning heavily on a hand-carved cane. She waved back, slowly but surely. Aone waited until she turned the corner and was no longer in his sight before sliding the door shut and getting back to business.

He was glad that Mrs. Yoshida hadn’t done anything else to the cake besides perching it on a fancy cake dish she’d somehow fished out of his cupboards.The cake dish, made of delicate pink china patterned with tiny rosettes, added even more to the cake’s charm. This plan wouldn’t work as well as he wanted if there was already a slice or two missing from the cake. Or maybe it would just showcase what was sure to be a beautifully layered cake underneath all that frosting and make it even more irresistible? Either way, it didn't matter. The cake would work perfectly. 

The plan was simple: Use the cake to as bait somewhere in the garden, hide, and wait for the orange-haired boy to make his appearance. 

He slid the outside door open with a socked foot, hands full with the cake and it’s plate. He tried to ignore the cake jiggling slightly from his trembling fingers and slowly slipped into the garden. Thankfully, it was empty. Somehow managing to take his eyes away from the peach tree, swaying innocuously in the slight breeze, he scoped out the area around it for a good spot to set the cake. He finally decided to set it on the garden’s cobblestone path as it winded near the tree. Conveniently, his hydrangea bushes were nearby, large and full of enough leaves to hide even Aone’s frame.

He would have to pass under the peach tree to reach the bushes, though. Taking a deep breath, he gently set the cake down on the cobblestones and quickly started to make his way over. He was just passing under the main branch of the tree when, as he watched in disbelief, a smaller branch jolted backwards as if pulled by an invisible hand. Whatever force pulling back the branch suddenly stopped, whipping it back in the opposite direction and slapping Aone straight in the face. 

He doubled over, yelling loudly as he clutched at his stinging face. He looked up just in time to see the red-headed ghost take a bounding leap towards the cake. Ignoring the cake plate completely, he grabbed two fistfuls of cake, pivoting as soon as he got his prize and scrambling back towards the tree. He was going to do that “disappearing into the tree” trick, Aone realized. Somehow, he forced his body into movement, blocking the pathway to the peach tree with his body, one arm spread wide to cover more area. The other hand still clutched at his face where he was sure there was a bright red welt forming.  

The ghost’s eyes flicked back and forth from him to the tree frantically. He tried edging over to one side and juking to the other but Aone was just as quick as him. Soon, they were at an impasse.  

As the seconds ticked by and he could no longer get back into the tree, the ghost became more and more agitated. Finally, he broke the silence. “I’m sorry I hit you with the branch, now please let me back into my tree!” He wailed loudly, making another desperate attempt towards the tree that was easily foiled by Aone.

Aone could feel the ridges where his eyebrows should be knit together in what was sure to be an impressive scowl. The boy yelped and took a step backwards, still talking. “I couldn’t help it! Whatever this thing is, it smelled too good to resist! And it’s covered in strawberries, who doesn’t love strawberries?!” He babbled nervously, waving his hands in front of him as if they could ward him off. 

While the boy kept pleading to go back to his tree, Aone was trying to force his throat, mute from fear, into speaking. He swallowed, trying to keep his racing heartbeat from climbing up his throat and steeled himself into speaking. 

“- just let me back into the back into the tree I won’t steal anything else of your’s I swear-” 

“Who are you?” Aone boomed, finally finding his voice. “And… and… and why are you in my garden?”  

Good! He thought to himself. A little loud and more aggressive than he would have liked, but he definitely got the right questions out. 

The other boy screamed in fright. Instinctively, Aone jumped at the unexpected noise. The flinch gave the other boy the opening that he needed, quickly side-stepping around him before Aone could react. Before he knew it, the boy was completely around him and vanishing into the tree once again. 

* * *

This time, Aone knew exactly what he had to do to see the ghost again. There wasn’t even any hiding or anything different that he needed to do. Just stay there, with the remains of the cake, and wait until the redhead lost his self-control and went for it again. From previous experience, he knew that Mrs. Yoshida’s baking was phenomenal. There was a 100% chance that this tree person, impulsive enough to hit him in the face with a branch instead of just waiting for him to leave before he stole his food, would come back for more. It was only a matter of time and Aone was determined to get an answer from him.

An hour passed before he saw another sign of the boy. Given up on standing long ago, he sat cross-legged on the cobblestones, arms crossed. Twice, he almost lost his nerve and gone inside to hide, but all he had to do was think about how scared the boy was to calm himself down. He was just as scared of Aone was Aone was scared of him, he repeated, shutting his eyes and shaking himself off to calm his nerves. When he opened them up, there was a small tuft of red hair and a brown eye peeking at him from behind the tree’s trunk.

Aone jolted in alarm, nearly falling over in surprise.

“I’m sorry!” The boy squeaked, disappearing back behind the trunk. 

Aone froze. If he kept scaring him off, there was no way he could figure out who he was, why he was here, and how to get him to leave. Forcing his body to take a calming breath, he repeated his question as calmly and quietly as he could. “Who are you and why are you in my garden?”

 (Later on, he would be so proud of himself for that sentence. Cool, calm and collected. Without even stuttering, either!)

 After a couple of seconds, the person peeked his head back out from behind the tree. “... You’re not going to hurt me or chop down my tree or anything, are you?”

 Aone shook his head firmly. 

 “Even though I hit you with a branch?” 

 He frowned, still feeling the sting. Still, he shook his head again.

 “Oh.” The tree person responded quietly, and the conversation lulled into silence from there are both of the boys too time to stare at each other curiously. The boy was still naked, so Aone kept his gaze strictly on his face. 

After about thirty seconds of eyeing each other up, the other boy’s shoulders suddenly bunched together and his hands lifted up, curling into fists in front of him. “My name is Hinata!” He yelled loudly, seemingly found his courage. His trembling was visible from where Aone was sitting, though, which ruined the effect. “And I was here in this tree first so you can’t make me leave! I don’t know what happened to the old man or why you’re living here now but we both live here now so we’re going to have to get along!”  Now that he’d said what he needed to say, Hinata visibly lost his steam and all his courage, slipping back behind the trunk and out of Aone’s sight. 

Aone could only blink and stare at the spot where Hinata disappeared in awe as the words sunk in. He hadn’t even come close to thinking of a response when Hinata popped back out, a determined look on his face.  

“And another thing!” He added shakily, finger pointing at Aone angrily. “If you try to hurt me or chop this tree down or whatever, I’ll… I’ll make sure that nothing grows in this garden ever again!” His threat slowly gained volume into a yell, ending with a squeak as his voice cracked. Hinata shook his finger at him one last time and sunk back into the tree, the last appearance he would make that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay they're talking now! :) 
> 
> Boy am I glad that Aone knows Hinata's name now. Makes writing this so much easier!
> 
> Next chapter: Aone and Hinata get a little more comfortable with each other and Aone forgets something very, very important.


End file.
